The Massachusetts Health and Hospital Association is planning to release its semiannual health plan performance report next month and will focus on payers’ finances and enrollment in 2021.
In a May 23 newsletter, the association highlights the 22 percent increase in payers’ net worth during the COVID-19 pandemic, which totals $6.1 billion for all plans in the state. The newsletter also points to the combined $1.2 billion profit made in 2020 and 2021, which exceeds the previous five years combined.
The newsletter does point to the important role insurers played during the pandemic, including providing coverage of medical care, new therapies, vaccinations and COVID-19 testing. Under federal law, payers also provided rebates to premium payers as healthcare utilization decreased significantly. Some payers independently provided financial support to stabilize providers and used their resources to support the pandemic response.
“Despite these new expenses and efforts related to the COVID-19 emergency, health insurance company profits were substantially higher than at any point in recent history given the overwhelming effect of decreased medical utilization,” the newsletter said.
The association also criticized the decrease in claims payouts during the pandemic, arguing surplus revenue should have been used to increase payouts and not increase profits.
The hospital group stated that four specific payers, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, UnitedHealthcare of New England, Tufts Associated HMO and HMO Blue from BCBS Massachusetts have risk-based capital ratios that approach or exceed 600 percent.
While healthcare is delivered locally, the business of healthcare is regional, and the regions are only getting bigger. Hospital and health system mergers alike have continued to shift from local to regional, and the recently announced merger between Advocate Aurora Health and Atrium Health clearly highlights that the regions are only getting bigger.
Advocate Aurora, with a presence in Illinois and Wisconsin, and Atrium Health, with a presence in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama, will combine to create a $27 billion health system that will span six states and make it one of the leading healthcare delivery systems in the country. The combined organization, which will transition to a new brand, Advocate Health, will operate 67 hospitals and over 1,000 sites of care, employ nearly 150,000 teammates, and serve 5.5 million patients. Together, Advocate Health will become the 6th largest system in the country behind Kaiser Permanente, HCA Healthcare, CommonSpirit Health, Ascension, and Providence.
We have seen a number of large health systems come together recently, including Intermountain Healthcare + SCL Health to create a $15 billion revenue system, Spectrum Health + Beaumont ($14 billion), NorthShore University Health System + Edward-Elmhurst Healthcare ($5 billion), LifePoint Health + Kindred Healthcare ($14 billion), and Jefferson Health + Einstein Healthcare Network ($8 billion).
The exact reasoning for each merger differs slightly, but one of the common threads across all is scale. But not scale in the traditional M&A sense. Rather, scale in covered lives; scale in physician infrastructure and alignment; scale in clinical and operational capabilities; scale in technology, innovation, and partnerships with non-traditional players; scale for capital access; and scale for insurance risk to compete in a value-based world. It is no longer the strong acquiring the weak. Rather, strong players are coming together to gain scale to face the headwinds in a unified manner.
For Advocate Aurora and Atrium, coming together is about leveraging their combined clinical excellence, advancing data analytics capabilities and digital consumer infrastructure, improving affordability, driving health equity, creating a next-generation workforce, research, and environmental sustainability. Together, they have pledged $2 billion to disrupt the root causes of health inequities across underserved communities and create more than 20,000 new jobs.
Both Advocate Aurora and Atrium are no strangers to mergers. Advocate and Aurora came together in 2018, and prior to that Advocate was intending to merge with NorthShore before being blocked due to anti-trust. Atrium has grown over the years, merging with systems such as Navicent Health in Georgia in 2018, Wake Forest Baptist Health in North Carolina 2020, and Floyd Health System in Georgia in 2021. In the newly proposed merger, Advocate Aurora and Atrium are coming together via a joint operating arrangement where each entity will be responsible for their own liabilities and maintain ownership of their respective assets but operate together under the new parent entity and board. This may allow the combined entity more flexibility in local decision-making. The current CEOs, Jim Skogsbergh and Eugene Woods will serve as co-CEOs for the first 18 months, at which point Skogsbergh will retire, and Woods will take over as the sole CEO.
Mergers can come in various shapes and structures, but the driving forces behind consolidation are not unique. With the need to compete in value-based care, adequately manage risk, gain scale across covered lives, physicians, and points of access, successfully deliver affordable high-quality care, and the need to deal with the vertical and horizontal consolidation of the large-scale payers, the markets that health systems operate in must be large enough to be effective and relevant. We fully expect to see more of these larger scale health system mergers in the near term.
The physical delivery of healthcare is local, but, again, the business of healthcare is not; it is regional, and the regions are only getting bigger.
The American Hospital Association, on behalf of its nearly 5,000 healthcare organizations, is urging the Justice Department to probe routine denials from commercial health insurance companies.
Specifically, the AHA is asking the Justice Department to establish a task force to conduct False Claims Act investigations into the insurers that routinely deny payments to providers, according to a May 19 letter to the department.
The request from the AHA comes after HHS’ Office of Inspector General released a report April 27 that found Medicare Advantage Organizations sometimes delayed or denied enrollees’ access to services although the provider’s prior authorization request met Medicare coverage rules.
“It is time for the Department of Justice to exercise its False Claims Act authority to both punish those MAOs that have denied Medicare beneficiaries and their providers their rightful coverage and to deter future misdeeds,” the AHA said in a letter to the Justice Department. “This problem has grown so large — and has lasted for so long — that only the prospect of civil and criminal penalties can adequately prevent the widespread fraud certain MAOs are perpetrating against sick and elderly patients across the country.”
Boston-based Mass General Brigham submitted a cost-reduction plan to Massachusetts regulators May 16, which includes a promise to cut healthcare spending by $70 million a year.
The health system was ordered by the Massachusetts Health Policy Commission in January to develop a plan to reduce costs after the watchdog determined it had pushed healthcare spending above acceptable levels in the last few years. Specifically, the commission found that Mass General Brigham had substantially higher-than-average commercial spending from 2014 to 2019. The health system spent $293 million those years, more than any other provider in the state.
To achieve its spending reduction goal, Mass General Brigham said it would focus on four items: cutting prices, reducing utilization, shifting care to lower-cost sites and expanding value-based care.
A key savings driver in Mass General Brigham’s plan is to lower outpatient and ConnectorCare rates to improve affordability. ConnectorCare is a program of subsidized private health insurance plans for patients whose family income doesn’t exceed 300 percent of the federal poverty level and who are not eligible for MassHealth, Medicare or other affordable health coverage. The health system expects to save about $53.8 million in spending a year through reducing these rates.
“Mass General Brigham is committed to expanding access to consumers, particularly in ambulatory care. To achieve improved access, we are focused on decreasing the price variation between Mass General Brigham pricing and the marketplace,” Mass General Brigham said in the performance improvement plan.
The health system said it expects to save $10.8 million in spending a year by reducing unnecessary hospitalizations, emergency room visits and post-acute care and reducing use of high-cost outpatient imaging.
The health system said it expects to save $5.3 million in spending a year by shifting care to lower-cost settings, such as moving to “hospital at home,” expanding telehealth or using other ambulatory sites.
In addition to reducing utilization, shifting care to lower-cost sites and reducing price, Mass General Brigham said it is committed to expanding value-based care.
Six health system and hospital deals have been canceled so far this year, whether it be a scrapped merger or acquisition or the unwinding of a partnership.
1. Proposed Dartmouth Health, GraniteOne Health merger canceled Lebanon, N.H.-based Dartmouth Health and Manchester, N.H.-based GraniteOne Health are canceling their proposed merger after the state Attorney General’s Office said the move would violate the New Hampshire constitution, according to VTDigger.
2. Hackensack Meridian, Englewood withdraw merger plans Edison, N.J.-based Hackensack Meridian Health and Englewood (N.J.) Health have dropped their merger plans, a spokesperson for Hackensack Meridian told Becker’s.
4. Lifespan, Care New England withdraw merger application The boards of Lifespan and Care New England — both based in Providence, R.I. — have decided to withdraw their merger application after the Federal Trade Commission made an announcement Feb. 17 it would file suit to block the deal.
5. Hoag, Providence to split: 5 things to know Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian in Newport Beach, Calif., and Providence, a Catholic health system based in Renton, Wash., said they would end their affiliation in January.
6. Trinity Health won’t buy Tower Health hospital Trinity Health Mid-Atlantic has abandoned its plan to buy Tower Health’s Chestnut Hill Hospital in Philadelphia, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.
U.S. hospitals performed more than 100,000 surgeries on older patients during the first year of the pandemic, according to a new Lown Institute analysis.
The healthcare think tank relied on Medicare claims data and analyzed eight common low-value procedures. It called the 100,000 procedures unnecessary and potentially harmful in a press release. It found that between March and December 2020, among the most-performed surgeries were coronary stents and back surgeries.
The procedures either offered little to no clinical benefit, according to the institute, or were more likely to harm patients than help them.
“You couldn’t go into your local coffee shop, but hospitals brought people in for all kinds of unnecessary procedures,” Vikas Saini, M.D., president of the Lown Institute, said in a statement. “The fact that a pandemic barely slowed things down shows just how deeply entrenched overuse is in American healthcare.”
Here is the volume of each procedure analyzed, for a total of 106,474 procedures identified:
1. Stents for stable coronary disease: 45,176 2. Vertebroplasty for osteoporosis: 16,553 3. Hysterectomy for benign disease: 14,455 4. Spinal fusion for back pain: 13,541 5. Inferior vena cava filter: 9,595 6. Carotid endarterectomy: 3,667 7. Renal stent: 1,891 8. Knee arthroscopy: 1,596
Among the “U.S. News & World Report” 20 top-ranked hospitals, all had rates of coronary stent procedures above the national average in what the Lown Institute called “overuse.” Four had at least double the national average, including the Cleveland Clinic, Houston Methodist Hospital, Mt. Sinai and Barnes Jewish Hospital. The procedures and overuse criteria were based on previous Lown research.
“We’ve known for over a decade that we shouldn’t be putting so many stents into patients with stable coronary disease, but we do it anyway,” Saini said. “As a cardiologist, it’s frustrating to see this behavior continue at such high levels, especially during the pandemic.”
In response to the Lown analysis, the American Hospital Association said in a statement Tuesday that delays or cancelations in non-emergency care may have negative outcomes on patients. “Lown may define these services as ‘low value,‘ but they can be of tremendous value to the patients who receive them,” the statement read.
It also pointed to its response to last year’s Lown analysis, which it criticized as being based “on data that are not only incomplete, but also not current.” The organization argued the services surveyed only represent a portion of the care hospitals provide. It added that procedures are determined by physicians based on an evaluation of the patient’s medical needs.
Despite substantial operating margin declines during the first year of COVID-19, U.S. hospitals were able to keep their finances on track thanks to billions in government relief funds, Johns Hopkins researchers wrote in a new study published Friday in JAMA Health Forum.
Per their analysis of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Hospital Cost Reports data, researchers found that thousands of hospitals broadly maintained their overall profit margins thanks to a boost in “other nonoperating income,” the category under which hospitals recorded the collective $175 billion in subsidies Congress allocated to support healthcare facilities and clinicians.
This was particularly the case for government, rural and smaller hospitals that typically run on tighter margins, the researchers wrote. Because they, by design, received more targeted relief than other types of hospitals, these facilities were able to record higher overall profit margins in 2020 than in prior years.
“Hospital operations were really hit hard during the pandemic,” Ge Bai, professor in the Bloomberg School’s Department of Health Policy and Management, a professor of accounting at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School and an author of the study, said in a statement.
“Our study shows that the relief funds provided an important lifeline to keep financially weak hospitals up and running.”
Among the study’s sample of 1,378 hospitals, mean operating margin declined from –1.0% in 2019 to –7.4% in 2020, representing the hit facilities took to their operations prior to the relief funding.
Those hospitals’ mean overall profit margin during the first year of the pandemic was 6.7%, which the researchers wrote was stable in light of the preceding four years and across all ownership types, geographic locations and hospital sizes.
The difference-maker, they wrote, was an increase in other nonoperating income as a share of a hospital’s total revenue. While that mean share was 4.4% in 2019, it jumped to 10.3% in 2020 thanks to the government relief funds.
Additionally, certain types of hospitals with traditionally lower overall profit margins saw significant improvements in 2020. These included government hospitals (3.7% to 7.2%), rural hospitals (1.9% to 7.5%) and hospitals with fewer admissions (3.5% to 6.7%).
“Hospitals that tend to serve socioeconomically disadvantaged patients and more who are uninsured are the most vulnerable to financial losses,” Yang Wang, a doctoral student in the Bloomberg School’s Department of Health Policy and Management and the study’s first author, said in a statement. “But the extra federal funding helped them stay operational.”
The researchers’ study included hospitals with fiscal years beginning in January whose financial data were compiled and processed as part of RAND Hospital Data, which in turn pulls its data from CMS’ Medicare Cost Reports. The findings persisted among a second sample of 785 hospitals from the database with fiscal years beginning in July.
The government’s distribution of COVID-19 relief funds to providers has faced some critique from healthcare policy researchers, some of whom suggested that the methodology led to funding skewed toward hospitals serving well-insured communities.
Much of the relief set aside for hospitals has since run dry or is on its last legs as of early 2022. With COVID hospitalizations again ticking upward and earlier surges still unaccounted for, industry groups and the Biden administration alike are pushing Congress for more relief support.
RWJBarnabas Health (RWJBH) and Saint Peter’s Healthcare System’s proposed integration has received the blessing of New Jersey regulators, a key step forward as the systems look to form what they describe as the state’s “first premier academic medical center,” according to a Monday announcement.
The organizations are now awaiting a final approval from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) before moving ahead with the deal.
“State approval now puts us on the cusp of being able to create New Jersey’s first multi-campus premier academic medical center that will draw top talent, increased research funding and more opportunities for groundbreaking clinical trials, while also enhancing specialized services and improving overall patient care,” Saint Peter’s President and CEO Leslie Hirsch said in a statement.
“New Jersey deserves to have a premier academic medical center of national distinction like many other states that will serve as a destination for patients from all walks of life to get lifesaving treatment for complex illnesses and as an anchor for medical innovation, educational opportunity and economic development,” Hirsch said.
The organizations said that in addition to increasing services and strengthening patient access, the premier academic medical center’s location in New Brunswick, New Jersey, would play a role in attracting more academic talent and research to nearby Rutgers University.
The systems’ announcement also cited affirmation from Superior Court Judge Lisa Vignuolo, who said when authorizing the transaction that the deal “will serve in the public interest and the public good.”
RWJBH is the larger of the pair, providing care to more than 3 million patients annually across 11 hospitals, four children’s hospitals and dozens of other centers. It’s already the largest academic health system in New Jersey thanks to a collaboration with Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical Schools to train over 1,000 medical residents and interns across RWJBH hospitals yearly.
Formed in 2007, Saint Peter’s Healthcare System is a Catholic organization headlined by the 478-bed Saint Peter’s University Hospital in New Brunswick. It also operates a children’s hospital, primary and specialty care networks and a surgical center.
Under the previously announced terms of the agreement, Saint Peter’s would remain a full-service acute healthcare provider in New Jersey and continue to adhere to its Catholic healthcare mission. RWJBH would make significant strategic capital investments in St. Peter’s facilities, technology and innovation.
“This is a tremendous milestone in a years-long journey towards fulfilling our shared vision to bring transformative care to New Jersey,” RWJBH CEO Barry Ostrowsky said in a statement.
Regulators’ green light for RWJBH’s moves contrasts with the recent opposition to Hackensack Meridian Health and Englewood Health’s now-nixed merger plans. The FTC and half of the country’s state attorneys general fought the proposal due to concerns that it would remove competition and harm residents in New Jersey’s Bergen County.
Private insurance plans paid hospitals on average 224% more compared with Medicare rates for both inpatient and outpatient services in 2020, a new study found.
Researchers at RAND Corporation looked at data from 4,000 hospitals in 49 states from 2018 to 2020. While the 224% increase in rates is high, it is a slight reduction from the 247% reported in 2018 in the last study RAND performed.
“This reduction is a result of a substantial increase in the volume of claims in the analysis from states with prices below the previous average price,” the study said.
The report showed that plans in certain states wound up paying hospitals more than others. It found that Florida, West Virginia and South Carolina had prices that were at or even higher than 310% of Medicare.
But other states like Hawaii, Arkansas and Washington paid less than 175% of Medicare rates.
“Employers can use this report to become better-informed purchasers of health benefits,” study lead author Christopher Waley said in a statement. “The work also highlights the levels and variation in hospital prices paid by employers and private insurers, and thus may help policymakers who may be looking for strategies to curb healthcare spending.”
The data come as the federal government has explored ways to lower healthcare costs, including going toe-to-toe with the hospital industry. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has in recent years sought to cut payments to off-campus outpatient clinics in order to bring Medicare payments in line with payments paid to physicians’ offices but has met with stiff legal and lobbying opposition from the hospital industry that argues the extra payments are needed.
CMS has also published regulations that call on hospitals to increase transparency of prices, including a rule that mandates hospitals publish online the prices for roughly 300 shoppable services.
The hospital industry pushed back against RAND’s findings, arguing that the study is based on incomplete data. The industry group American Hospital Association said researchers only looked at 2.2% of overall hospital spending, a small portion of overall expenses.
“Researchers should expect variation in the cost of delivering services across the wide range of U.S. hospitals – from rural critical access hospitals to large academic medical centers,” said AHA CEO Rick Pollack in a statement to Fierce Healthcare. “Tellingly, when RAND added more claims as compared to previous versions of this report, the average price for hospital services declined.”
Hospital systems can employ artificial intelligence to reduce the types of health inequities that have made communities of color more vulnerable to COVID-19, the leader of one of the nation’s largest health systems says.
“At Northwell Health, New York’s largest health system, we know health disparities will only grow worse if we don’t move more quickly to identify and correct them,” Michael Dowling, president and CEO of New Hyde Park-based Northwell Health, wrote in a May 11 news release with Tom Manning, chair of Ascertain, an AI venture between Northwell and Aegis Ventures. “To do that, we have turned to AI to disrupt this future.”
For instance, health systems can utilize AI to forecast which expectant mothers could benefit from early intervention and specialized care to treat preeclampsia, a pregnancy complication characterized by high blood pressure that affects Black women at three times the rate of white women, the executives wrote.
Organizations can also use health screenings and predictive models to determine which patients are most likely to develop chronic health conditions such as obesity, diabetes and hypertension, the men wrote. In addition, systems should diligently research AI health care applications, such as the National Institutes of Health’s All of Us initiative, which seeks to obtain health data from a representative sample of the U.S. population.
Dowling and Manning noted that health systems must also commit to high standards of data integrity outlined by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and apply the Hippocratic oath to AI to make sure it does not widen health inequities.
HENRY KOTULA 